FILES by Editor, MCKUG, August 1987 (Tips on copying, printing, combining files for CP/M & DOS) Direct Keyboard Manipulation of Files and Printer: Possibilities here are much greater than just TYPE FILENAME.EXT. I keep confusing how to do some of these things so I have gathered them together here for reference: File Creation: To type directly from the command line to a new file: In CP/M: type PIP FILENAME.EST=CRT: (or CON:). Then type the text, entering CR and Line Feed at the end of each line. End with Ctrl-Z, and there is your new file. In MS-DOS: type COPY CON FILENAME. Press enter at the end of each line, end with Ctrl-Z. These shortcuts are very practical for very short files, such as batch files. FILE CONCATENATION: To combine 2 or more files into one file: In CP/M: PIP NEWNAME=OLDNAME1,OLDNAME2 (and ,OLDNAME3 etc. if desired). In MS-DOS: COPY OLDNAME1+OLDNAME2 NEWNAME WILDCARD CONCATENATION: In MS-DOS only, wild cards are allowed in the above formulation. COPY *.LST + *.REF *.LR combines each file having a .LST extension with the corresponding .REF file to produce the corresponding .LR file - so if you have 3 pairs of .LST and .REF files, for instance, you will end up with 3 .LR files. COPY *.LST + *.REF *.COMBIN.LR, on the other hand, combines each file having a *.LST and all files matching *.REF into a single file named COMBIN.LR. TYPEWRITER: To type directly from the command line to the printer: In CP/M: type PIP LST: = CON:. Then type the test, pressing Return and Line Feed at the end of each line. It types each letter immediately as you enter it. End with ctrl-Z. In MS-DOS: type COPY CON PRN [or LPT1 or COM1 or COM2 ]. End with Ctrl Z - at which time the text will print. You'll have to regress to typing without word-wrap or prior-line corrections (in CP/M, even without current line corrections) but, again, this is good for short jobs. FILE PRINT: To print a file without going through a print program: In CP/M: type PIP LST:=FILENAME.EXT[P]. Add [z] for files with non-ASCII characters such as Wordstar files. Or just type TYPE FILENAM Ctrl-P and toggle off Ctrl-P again when the file finishes printing. The files need to have carriage returns at the end of every line and with the PIP strategy (not with TYPE) , if the word processor uses blank-packing, it gives my printer fits. I don't know about yours. In MS-DOS: type COPY FILENAME PRN or TYPE FILENAME > PRN . Again, this won't handle blank-packed files for me (will someone please tell me how to get around this?) and it needs carriage returns on every line.